I'm Beth. I'm Frank. I really thought I stank....

I guess they can't all be winners.

I had a pretty bad audition today. I wasn't really prepared. A friend recommended me to the people, so I didn't ever submit, they just asked me to come on in. I liked the sides, and I knew I could do it, but I felt, right off the bat, that I wasn't pretty enough for any of the parts.

I deal with that a lot.

Prettiness is such a weird thing. Almost as subjective as talent. But often more influential. You can overcome prettiness or lack thereof if you are talented enough, but with some people, you'll never get to that point if you're not pretty to begin with. Hence, my problem.

I'd like to do something low key, natural, funny, after so much heightened text, but I felt this right away, so I didn't feel particularly enthusiastic about the audition. And so, because of that, I didn't work hard enough. Because I didn't work hard enough, I got very nervous right when I started. That wasn't helped by the fact that right away I felt they knew I wasn't pretty enough. Ugh, that's such a horrible feeling.

I have to get back into auditioning. I've lost some muscle. I'm uncomfortable and my monologues are not great.

You win some, you lose some.

Right...?

Sigh.

I am in a Conventional Dither, With a Conventional Star in my Eye

Sometimes I don't know why I don't blog more because I really do like it, and I like going back and thinking that I am funny. And then it takes forever to upload photos and I know why I don't blog more and it is because it takes forever to upload photos.

I think about blogging a lot. I have things to say, I know that.

So I was not an actor for about four days, and then I got an offer, and that was great. I am in a tenuous balance of feeling good and worrying that it is not enough. It changes second to second. Like the weather in Blaine. Things are ok. Nothing is enough and I have to accept that that is the way I am and fight to make things feel like enough but also be ok with how I'm feeling. Blah.

I want more contracts and I'm fighting for ways to make things feel like enough.

But I'm trying to be grateful. I have goals, and when I reach them, I don't even feel pleased, I just set a new goal, because the first one seems like nothing. But then I never get to be happy. So I'm trying to remember that it was a big goal to get a contract before Tout Comme Elle, and I did, so smile, Jessie, smile!


As if you were dancing to an Irish jig!

the WITCH of edmonton was named an Outstanding Production by NOW Magazine, which is awesome, and means both times I've been in SummerWorks I've had that honor. It was a great thing to be a part of, and I'm so happy I fought to do two shows this summer. It was crazy, but totally, totally worth it. Richard Ouzounian came! That was cool. He had never seen me act before.

Watch how this ordinary homely girl.....


is changed by the magic of THEATRE!!!!


Into some sort of prostitute, I guess. Or clown. A bit of both.

These are my WITCH-y pics-ees.


Do I not look like the happiest kid on the playground in this?? Oh man, do I ever love to dance. Really, I should just be in musicals, always. Because that's all I ever want to be doing. Even though this morris dance was hard. But we got it by the end!

Ahh, there is nothing I love more than thinking something is impossible or being told it is impossible and then FUCKING DOING IT ANYWAY!


Or maybe these are the happiest kids on the playground.

It really did feel like recess. Well, maybe recess at Auschwitz. But there were always lots of puppies. Who wanted our sticks.






Maybe this picture just looks like nothing, but it is representative of the darkness that we entered every night as we walked through the park, not unlike the darkness that the characters revealed in their souls.


Yay for so many pictures!!!!! I wish I had more WITCH pics, but it's hard in the dark. You know how it is!

I've Got a Singular Impression Things Are Moving Too Fast

Too fast.
Things are spinning, actually.
I don't know if things are good or bad or if any of it means anything. There's lots to think about but thinking has not solved a single problem so far.

There's lots to blog about, too. Shrew ending, and what that was. And WITCH, which I barely mentioned, which was very exciting and scary and frustrating and beautiful and a million adjectives. Everything I do is a million adjectives. Maybe I should stop having so many feelings about everything.

But then I would not be me.

I have pictures of things too, pictures that make this blog readable, but given that no one reads it and I can't think straight enough to write it, or to put anything in it, maybe that isn't an issue. Or maybe it is the issue.

Developments will come and decisions will be made. Exceptions will be made, as I seem to have become someone for whom exceptions must be made. I will live with things and be constantly angry and sad and then new things will come and I will be angry and sad about them. This is it.

I am butterflies.

I'm Not a Rabbit, I Need Some Rest

Oh so many things to do.
Oh so many things to say.

And actually not really at all.

I am in another show, which is madness, really. Ridiculous that I should close one show on Monday and open another on Thursday. RIDDIKULUS! That is a Harry Potter joke. Oh so many things to do.

WITCH is going very well. We had a huge opening house, positive review, and except for a very difficult Sunday night show where the weather kept threatening rain and then it just got humid, we've been very fortunate. It is coming together in the run. I'm having fun but I am tired.

We change and get ready in the parking lot. Later in the show, I change costumes in a children's playground. I wear an entire outfit underneath, as I both hate and fear my body. I also hate and fear that feeling that someone is watching me change in a children's playground.

This is such a big show. There is a two hour call before we start, and its full of walking back and forth across the park, dropping off props, checking props, putting on a ton of makeup, changing, walking back and forth across the park. Then we do it all in reverse at the end. The shows this summer have been very labour intensive. No just showing-up-and-acting for me. I dig it, but I am also getting hungry for a theatre. I think I've forgotten what they feel like on the inside.

I'm having to push to keep going. I like it, but it's work right now.

Right now I am doing laundry, eating a popsicle, writing this blog, and writing a proposal for a project that I will likely not finish in time and would be rejected for if I applied anyway. I should be taking a shower and cleaning my room but they seem unlikely at this hour. I feel that I'm not doing things I should be doing, that I'm working so hard on projects that are wrapping up and that means I'm sacrificing what would be coming up, which I need to focus on because I have noooooothing going on soon.

Oh, I wanted to put on pictures but who has the energy??

Well, Maybe Next Year.....

Another one bites the dust.

For some reason I'm dreading releasing this one and I don't know why. I haven't added it to my resume yet, which is something I always wait to do after the run is over. I know most actors add something as soon as they get the offer, but I guess I don't want to jinx it. Plus, it doesn't seem like I've really played the role until I'm done with the role. I haven't added it yet. It was a long contract: 7 weeks full time is a lot to spend on a play. I am not used to having the luxury of working on it full time. Normally I would work on something for maybe 7 or 8 weeks, but most of those weeks would just be occasional rehearsals, and then we would have somewhere between two and fifteen shows. This was much longer. This was a much bigger part of my life.

It wasn't a play I loved, and I didn't grow to love it during the run. There isn't enough poetry in it for me. It's quite a mean spirited little show, to me, when I think about it. But I did love touring, so the experience

The next show is happening very soon and it doesn't seem real. And then I will have nothing to do and have to deal with a whole bunch of miscellany that I have heretofore successfully avoided by wrapping my identity completely up in work. That doesn't seem real either.

I don't feel ready for the next show and I'm worried about it. I don't want to be negative and I don't want to be the asshole in the cast so I am trying not to be, but it's hard to be in the middle of something that just seems to be spinning too fast. These plays are like vapor, they are just gone so quickly and it is as if they haven't happened. My clingy nature is not made for theatre. I am not made to be loved and left.

I should probably gather my thoughts about this finished project and put them in a readable form that will emphasize the learning process and the benefits to my ongoing career, but I'm not able to do that right now. I might later. Or I might not.

I'm thinking about this a lot:

The Closing, When the Customers Don't Come....

Or hopefully they do. Tomorrow is our last show. It would be really great if it could be a big one. I want to see throngs of people! Hoardes! Seas!

I'm quickly descending into Post-Show-Depression and I don't know how to not. I am terribly upset that I am missing the cast party and I don't know how to not be. I don't know why these things don't get easier. I've done lots of plays: I should be able to say goodbye to them.

I'm very concerned about my next show, which has the potential to be great, but, because of that potential, also has the distinct possibility of disaster. I feel like a hypocrite because I say that I'm in theatre for the potential for disaster, but when it rears its head I get scared. I wish I wasn't such a baby. I wish I was more of an artist. I need to be more courageous. I also need to be more hearty: not get so down and so scared so fast. It's no good in a team mentality, and I want to work with people, I don't want to create on my own, I'm not interested in that, so I have to get better about not falling apart.

I think there was something I actually wanted to write about, and now I don't remember what it is.

I feel blue.